While in high school, Farnsworth conceived the basic requirements for television, and after two years at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, he began research into the process of picture transmission. In 1926 he cofounded Crocker Research Laboratories, which was reorganized as Farnsworth Television, Inc. (1929), and later as Farnsworth Radio and Television Corporation (1938).

In 1927 Farnsworth successfully transmitted an image (a dollar sign) composed of 60 horizontal lines and submitted his first television patent. He subsequently invented numerous devices, including equipment for converting an optical image into an electrical signal, amplifier, cathode-ray, and vacuum tubes, electrical scanners, electron multipliers, and photoelectric materials. He held some 165 patents.

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